Colson, a prominent and revered Religious Right author and theoretician, seems to have been drifting toward the edge of the flat Earth for years.

Colson converted to evangelical Christianity while doing time in prison for his felonious role in the Nixon-era Watergate scandal. After getting out in 1975, he founded Prison Fellowship and focused on helping inmates find God. His emphasis on rehabilitation instead of draconian punishment made him friends among progressives and enemies among the hard right.